by Daniel Defoe
they lived, now these three turbulent fellows were gone. As for
their coming again, that was the remotest thing from their thoughts
that could be imagined; when, behold, after two-and-twenty days'
absence, one of the Englishmen being abroad upon his planting work,
sees three strange men coming towards him at a distance, with guns
upon their shoulders.
Away runs the Englishman, frightened and amazed, as if he was
bewitched, to the governor Spaniard, and tells him they were all
undone, for there were strangers upon the island, but he could not
tell who they were. The Spaniard, pausing a while, says to him,
"How do you mean--you cannot tell who? They are the savages, to be
sure." "No, no," says the Englishman, "they are men in clothes,
with arms." "Nay, then," says the Spaniard, "why are you so
concerned! If they are not savages they must be friends; for there
is no Christian nation upon earth but will do us good rather than
harm." While they were debating thus, came up the three
Englishmen, and standing without the wood, which was new planted,
hallooed to them. They presently knew their voices, and so all the
wonder ceased. But now the admiration was turned upon another
question--What could be the matter, and what made them come back
again?
It was not long before they brought the men in, and inquiring where
they had been, and what they had been doing, they gave them a full
account of their voyage in a few words: that they reached the land
in less than two days, but finding the people alarmed at their
coming, and preparing with bows and arrows to fight them, they
durst not go on, shore, but sailed on to the northward six or seven
hours, till they came to a great opening, by which they perceived
that the land they saw from our island was not the main, but an
island: that upon entering that opening of the sea they saw
another island on the right hand north, and several more west; and
being resolved to land somewhere, they put over to one of the
islands which lay west, and went boldly on shore; that they found
the people very courteous and friendly to them; and they gave them
several roots and some dried fish, and appeared very sociable; and
that the women, as well as the men, were very forward to supply
them with anything they could get for them to eat, and brought it
to them a great way, on their heads. They continued here for four
days, and inquired as well as they could of them by signs, what
nations were this way, and that way, and were told of several
fierce and terrible people that lived almost every way, who, as
they made known by signs to them, used to eat men; but, as for
themselves, they said they never ate men or women, except only such
as they took in the wars; and then they owned they made a great
feast, and ate their prisoners.
The Englishmen inquired when they had had a feast of that kind; and
they told them about two moons ago, pointing to the moon and to two
fingers; and that their great king had two hundred prisoners now,
which he had taken in his war, and they were feeding them to make
them fat for the next feast. The Englishmen seemed mighty desirous
of seeing those prisoners; but the others mistaking them, thought
they were desirous to have some of them to carry away for their own
eating. So they beckoned to them, pointing to the setting of the
sun, and then to the rising; which was to signify that the next
morning at sunrising they would bring some for them; and
accordingly the next morning they brought down five women and
eleven men, and gave them to the Englishmen to carry with them on
their voyage, just as we would bring so many cows and oxen down to
a seaport town to victual a ship.
As brutish and barbarous as these fellows were at home, their
stomachs turned at this sight, and they did not know what to do.
To refuse the prisoners would have been the highest affront to the
savage gentry that could be offered them, and what to do with them
they knew not. However, after some debate, they resolved to accept
of them: and, in return, they gave the savages that brought them
one of their hatchets, an old key, a knife, and six or seven of
their bullets; which, though they did not understand their use,
they seemed particularly pleased with; and then tying the poor
creatures' hands behind them, they dragged the prisoners into the
boat for our men.
The Englishmen were obliged to come away as soon as they had them,
or else they that gave them this noble present would certainly have
expected that they should have gone to work with them, have killed
two or three of them the next morning, and perhaps have invited the
donors to dinner. But having taken their leave, with all the
respect and thanks that could well pass between people, where on
either side they understood not one word they could say, they put
off with their boat, and came back towards the first island; where,
when they arrived, they set eight of their prisoners at liberty,
there being too many of them for their occasion. In their voyage
they endeavoured to have some communication with their prisoners;
but it was impossible to make them understand anything. Nothing
they could say to them, or give them, or do for them, but was
looked upon as going to murder them. They first of all unbound
them; but the poor creatures screamed at that, especially the
women, as if they had just felt the knife at their throats; for
they immediately concluded they were unbound on purpose to be
killed. If they gave them thing to eat, it was the same thing;
they then concluded it was for fear they should sink in flesh, and
so not be fat enough to kill. If they looked at one of them more
particularly, the party presently concluded it was to see whether
he or she was fattest, and fittest to kill first; nay, after they
had brought them quite over, and began to use them kindly, and
treat them well, still they expected every day to make a dinner or
supper for their new masters.
When the three wanderers had give this unaccountable history or
journal of their voyage, the Spaniard asked them where their new
family was; and being told that they had brought them on shore, and
put them into one of their huts, and were come up to beg some
victuals for them, they (the Spaniards) and the other two
Englishmen, that is to say, the whole colony, resolved to go all
down to the place and see them; and did so, and Friday's father
with them. When they came into the hut, there they sat, all bound;
for when they had brought them on shore they bound their hands that
they might not take the boat and make their escape; there, I say,
they sat, all of them stark naked. First, there were three comely
fellows, well shaped, with straight limbs, about thirty to thirty-
five years of age; and five women, whereof two might be from thirty
to forty, two more about four or five and twenty; and the fifth, a
tall, comely maiden, about seventeen. The women were well-
favoured, agreeable persons, both in shape and features, only
tawny; and two of them, had they been perfect white, would have
passed for very handsome women, even in London, having pleasant
countenances, and of a very modest behaviour; especially when they
came afterwards to be clothed and dressed, though that dress was
very indifferent, it must be confessed.
The sight, you may be sure, was something uncouth to our Spaniards,
who were, to give them a just character, men of the most calm,
sedate tempers, and perfect good humour, that ever I met with:
and, in particular, of the utmost modesty: I say, the sight was
very uncouth, to see three naked men and five naked women, all
together bound, and in the most miserable circumstances that human
nature could be supposed to be, viz. to be expecting every moment
to be dragged out and have their brains knocked out, and then to be
eaten up like a calf that is killed for a dainty.
The first thing they did was to cause the old Indian, Friday's
father, to go in, and see first if he knew any of them, and then if
he understood any of their speech. As soon as the old man came in,
he looked seriously at them, but knew none of them; neither could
any of them understand a word he said, or a sign he could make,
except one of the women. However, this was enough to answer the
end, which was to satisfy them that the men into whose hands they
were fallen were Christians; that they abhorred eating men or
women; and that they might be sure they would not be killed. As
soon as they were assured of this, they discovered such a joy, and
by such awkward gestures, several ways, as is hard to describe; for
it seems they were of several nations. The woman who was their
interpreter was bid, in the next place, to ask them if they were
willing to be servants, and to work for the men who had brought
them away, to save their lives; at which they all fell a-dancing;
and presently one fell to taking up this, and another that,
anything that lay next, to carry on their shoulders, to intimate
they were willing to work.
The governor, who found that the having women among them would
presently be attended with some inconvenience, and might occasion
some strife, and perhaps blood, asked the three men what they
intended to do with these women, and how they intended to use them,
whether as servants or as wives? One of the Englishmen answered,
very boldly and readily, that they would use them as both; to which
the governor said: "I am not going to restrain you from it--you
are your own masters as to that; but this I think is but just, for
avoiding disorders and quarrels among you, and I desire it of you
for that reason only, viz. that you will all engage, that if any of
you take any of these women as a wife, he shall take but one; and
that having taken one, none else shall touch her; for though we
cannot marry any one of you, yet it is but reasonable that, while
you stay here, the woman any of you takes shall be maintained by
the man that takes her, and should be his wife--I mean," says he,
"while he continues here, and that none else shall have anything to
do with her." All this appeared so just, that every one agreed to
it without any difficulty.
Then the Englishmen asked the Spaniards if they designed to take
any of them? But every one of them answered "No." Some of them
said they had wives in Spain, and the others did not like women
that were not Christians; and all together declared that they would
not touch one of them, which was an instance of such virtue as I
have not met with in all my travels. On the other hand, the five
Englishmen took them every one a wife, that is to say, a temporary
wife; and so they set up a new form of living; for the Spaniards
and Friday's father lived in my old habitation, which they had
enlarged exceedingly within. The three servants which were taken
in the last battle of the savages lived with them; and these
carried on the main part of the colony, supplied all the rest with
food, and assisted them in anything as they could, or as they found
necessity required.
But the wonder of the story was, how five such refractory, ill-
matched fellows should agree about these women, and that some two
of them should not choose the same woman, especially seeing two or
three of them were, without comparison, more agreeable than the
others; but they took a good way enough to prevent quarrelling
among themselves, for they set the five women by themselves in one
of their huts, and they went all into the other hut, and drew lots
among them who should choose first.
Him that drew to choose first went away by himself to the hut where
the poor naked creatures were, and fetched out her he chose; and it
was worth observing, that he that chose first took her that was
reckoned the homeliest and oldest of the five, which made mirth
enough amongst the rest; and even the Spaniards laughed at it; but
the fellow considered better than any of them, that it was
application and business they were to expect assistance in, as much
as in anything else; and she proved the best wife of all the
parcel.
When the poor women saw themselves set in a row thus, and fetched
out one by one, the terrors of their condition returned upon them
again, and they firmly believed they were now going to be devoured.
Accordingly, when the English sailor came in and fetched out one of
them, the rest set up a most lamentable cry, and hung about her,
and took their leave of her with such agonies and affection as
would have grieved the hardest heart in the world: nor was it
possible for the Englishmen to satisfy them that they were not to
be immediately murdered, till they fetched the old man, Friday's
father, who immediately let them know that the five men, who were
to fetch them out one by one, had chosen them for their wives.
When they had done, and the fright the women were in was a little
over, the men went to work, and the Spaniards came and helped them:
and in a few hours they had built them every one a new hut or tent
for their lodging apart; for those they had already were crowded
with their tools, household stuff, and provisions. The three
wicked ones had pitched farthest off, and the two honest ones
nearer, but both on the north shore of the island, so that they
continued separated as before; and thus my island was peopled in
three places, and, as I might say, three towns were begun to be
built.
And here it is very well worth observing that, as it often happens
in the world (what the wise ends in God's providence are, in such a
disposition of things, I cannot say), the two honest fellows had
the two worst wives; and the three reprobates, that were scarce
worth hanging, that were fit for nothing, and neither seemed born
to do themselves good nor any one else, had three clever, careful,
and ingenious wives; not that the first two were bad wives as to
their temper o
r humour, for all the five were most willing, quiet,
passive, and subjected creatures, rather like slaves than wives;
but my meaning is, they were not alike capable, ingenious, or
industrious, or alike cleanly and neat. Another observation I must
make, to the honour of a diligent application on one hand, and to
the disgrace of a slothful, negligent, idle temper on the other,
that when I came to the place, and viewed the several improvements,
plantings, and management of the several little colonies, the two
men had so far out-gone the three, that there was no comparison.
They had, indeed, both of them as much ground laid out for corn as
they wanted, and the reason was, because, according to my rule,
nature dictated that it was to no purpose to sow more corn than
they wanted; but the difference of the cultivation, of the
planting, of the fences, and indeed, of everything else, was easy
to be seen at first view.
The two men had innumerable young trees planted about their huts,
so that, when you came to the place, nothing was to be seen but a
wood; and though they had twice had their plantation demolished,
once by their own countrymen, and once by the enemy, as shall be
shown in its place, yet they had restored all again, and everything
was thriving and flourishing about them; they had grapes planted in
order, and managed like a vineyard, though they had themselves
never seen anything of that kind; and by their good ordering their
vines, their grapes were as good again as any of the others. They
had also found themselves out a retreat in the thickest part of the
woods, where, though there was not a natural cave, as I had found,
yet they made one with incessant labour of their hands, and where,
when the mischief which followed happened, they secured their wives
and children so as they could never be found; they having, by
sticking innumerable stakes and poles of the wood which, as I said,
grew so readily, made the grove impassable, except in some places,
when they climbed up to get over the outside part, and then went on
by ways of their own leaving.
As to the three reprobates, as I justly call them, though they were
much civilised by their settlement compared to what they were
before, and were not so quarrelsome, having not the same
opportunity; yet one of the certain companions of a profligate mind
never left them, and that was their idleness. It is true, they
planted corn and made fences; but Solomon's words were never better
verified than in them, "I went by the vineyard of the slothful, and
it was all overgrown with thorns": for when the Spaniards came to
view their crop they could not see it in some places for weeds, the
hedge had several gaps in it, where the wild goats had got in and
eaten up the corn; perhaps here and there a dead bush was crammed
in, to stop them out for the present, but it was only shutting the
stable-door after the steed was stolen. Whereas, when they looked
on the colony of the other two, there was the very face of industry
and success upon all they did; there was not a weed to be seen in
all their corn, or a gap in any of their hedges; and they, on the
other hand, verified Solomon's words in another place, "that the
diligent hand maketh rich"; for everything grew and thrived, and
they had plenty within and without; they had more tame cattle than
the others, more utensils and necessaries within doors, and yet
more pleasure and diversion too.
It is true, the wives of the three were very handy and cleanly
within doors; and having learned the English ways of dressing, and
cooking from one of the other Englishmen, who, as I said, was a
cook's mate on board the ship, they dressed their husbands'
victuals very nicely and well; whereas the others could not be
brought to understand it; but then the husband, who, as I say, had
been cook's mate, did it himself. But as for the husbands of the
three wives, they loitered about, fetched turtles' eggs, and caught
fish and birds: in a word, anything but labour; and they fared
accordingly. The diligent lived well and comfortably, and the
